


Take me as I am

by Reformed (GarGoyl)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Awkwardness, Demons, Eventual Happy Ending, I'll add more tags, If that's what you'd call it, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Pole Dancing, Pork buns, Seduction, Supernatural Elements, Yokai!Hinata, Yôkai, demon hunter!Kageyama, hunter/familiar relationships, this is really creepy, yokai!Oikawa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2020-10-24 20:50:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20712332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GarGoyl/pseuds/Reformed
Summary: “Our numbers are dwindling. The fight becomes ever tougher, evil is taking over this city more and more each day and that’s why the elders of the Order have held a meeting last night. For the sake of preserving what remains of our organization, we will not send out any more hunters who don’t meet the established requirements. No one without magic blood, no one who hasn’t passed all the abilities tests, no one under twenty-one, and no one without a familiar. Do you understand, Kageyama?”Tobio is already an accomplished demon hunter, but the task of acquiring a yokai familiar might just prove the toughest one yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! So I found a post on Tumblr requesting a villain!Hinata fic (there isn't any apparently) and while I know there's still some time left until Halloween, I felt like writing a creepy little tale where Hinata is a (bit of a ) negative character. Enjoy!

Hands stuffed deeply into the pockets of his black peacoat, Tobio shivers slightly into the cloudy, foggy autumn afternoon. Here, in the outskirts of the city, the air smells of smoke and garbage and a desolate view opened to his tired eyes as soon as he left the main road behind. Now there’s no more concrete under his boots, just bare dirt still moist from the last rains, mixed with fallen leaves and the low, poorly built houses are cramped and huddled together in a pathetic display.

Not so long ago, the place used to be a village, the city stretching further away, but ever since the industrial area expanded the two are mingled into joint ugliness. Still, here there are more trees and overall vegetation left and it’s bound to look somewhat better in the warm season, when the now bare branches and bushes will grow fresh leaves. At least that’s what the brunet tells himself, choosing to ignore the dark plumage and beady eyes of the countless crows lounging about where the foliage of summer has once been.

_“Our numbers are dwindling. The fight becomes ever tougher, evil is taking over this city more and more each day and that’s why the elders of the Order have held a meeting last night. For the sake of preserving what remains of our organization, we will not send out any more hunters who don’t meet the established requirements. No one without magic blood, no one who hasn’t passed all the abilities tests, no one under twenty-one, and no one without a familiar. Do you understand, Kageyama?”_

To hell with the elders, Tobio thinks as he halts his steps, pulling out the crumpled piece of paper with the vague directions given by Master Ukai. He passed all the tests back when he was only seventeen, his family descends from the powerful King clan and he _will be_ twenty-one in a couple of months. For fuck’s sake, he may be very young still, but he _can_ do this job! He was trained for it from the very beginning, there never was any other option.

It’s the only thing he can take pride in.

As for getting a familiar… From all the nefarious magic creatures lurking around, Tobio was taught to be especially wary of _yōkai _and their accursed charms. With wicked smiles and seductive bodies, they lure in unsuspecting humans and feed on them and deep down he doesn’t even really believe that these creatures can be tamed to become a proper familiar. Of course, pure_ yōkai _are out of the question, that’s why the Order’s hunters only ever choose _half-__yōkai - _those who have been human once - for their familiars.

_Half-y__ōkai _are every bit as horrible as the rest of them, though, if left to their own devices.

A small wooden building catches his eye, nestled snugly between two thick tree trunks and Tobio scowls, even as he starts in its direction. This must be the indicated shrine – because nothing else around looks even remotely like a shrine – and even this looks more like a tool shed than anything else. There are no visible ornaments or inscriptions anywhere on the bare boards making up the outer wall and the tiny door is even slightly ajar, giving the place a deserted look.

But it can’t be, Master Ukai wouldn’t have sent him on a wild goose chase - this matter is supposed to have been investigated beforehand. Out of habit, Tobio gives the door a light push with his foot, even if this time he doesn’t reach for the any of the weapons concealed under his coat. There’s still plenty of time until sunset, there shouldn’t be any danger yet.

The inside of the shrine is a simple, square room with a low ceiling, built around the inner part of it, which is a separate rectangle almost the size of a broom closet, tall almost up to the roof but barely wide enough to contain a body. It’s made up entirely of framed paper _shoji _panels, the sliding front doors sealed with red and green wax charms. The shrine has no windows, but dim light filters in through the cracks of the roof, illuminating the dirty, bare ground flooring littered with more dead leaves and carved with tiny rivulets from the rain.

It is too dark though, so Tobio fishes out a flashlight from his pocket, despite having mixed feelings about it. He’s hunted_ yōkai _many times before, in abandoned buildings, in clubs, even out in the street at night, but never in a tomb and even less a shrine. He doesn’t really understand how this old tradition was supposed to work anyway - why people would try to keep the _half-yōkai _inside shrines instead of just burning the bodies in the usual way and why they would bring food offerings, since these clearly never did anything to appease the creatures’ feeding habits.

But clearly, Master Ukai must have thought that a shrine _yōkai_ would be easier to deal with, they’d be more vulnerable. Well, to destruction maybe, but not to capture, Kageyama thinks, half-hugging himself to fight a sudden chill. And now he’s just here to find out more about the shrine’s inhabitant, not get into a fight.

_“To subdue a half-_ _yōkai, you must know them first, you must know their story. That’s their weakness, if you don’t know that, the binding spells will not work and they will not submit as your familiar.”_

He must be careful with the light, use it as little as possible and not direct it towards the inner part of the shrine. He doesn’t want to know what’s inside and might come out just yet.

On the right side of the room there’s a cheap, rusty bicycle, thrown randomly against the wall and covered with a thick layer of dust, while on the left there is a simple wooden table with a copper tray for offerings, next to a black-and-white photo, the frame tied with a black ribbon in one corner, and a discolored, dirty volleyball.

The brunet resists the urge to reach for the ball, suddenly reminded of his school days. Back then he’d joined the volleyball club for a couple of years, the long hours of practice helping to take his mind off the fact that, just as for the rest of his family, Tobio’s path in life was already set – he was to become part of the Order and serve, and he could do nothing else since his talents simply could not go to waste. 

He doesn’t want to look at the photo though, there’s an unsettling feeling in his bones at the mere thought of it, but it must be done. He always does what must be done. Fuck. Tobio doesn’t even know why Master Ukai thinks this _half-__yōkai _would make an adequate familiar for him, but as usual the old man didn’t bother with any further explanations.

Reluctantly, the brunet steps even closer to the table, peering at the dusty frame. There’s a teenage boy in the picture, with large, doe-like eyes, short messy hair which seems to be rather light-colored and a wide, bright smile. He doesn’t look older than fourteen, at most. The foulness of it twists Tobio’s gut painfully. It’s not just the kid’s death in itself, that vibe of lost, buried youth, but the violent death he must have suffered. It was no accident either, the boy _was killed_, otherwise he wouldn’t have turned.

Tobio turns away from the photo, refusing to take that thought any further, his gaze drawn instead and against his will towards the colorful seals, somewhat striking against the bland, yellowed paper of the _shoji_ doors, like a warning. They look intact, as if never opened.

Anyway, at a first glance the shrine isn’t helpful at all. It seems to belong to an ordinary kid, probably from the village, and the few things lying around give no indication as to what might have happened to him. On the offerings tray there’s a small, torn paper bag, the insides stained with grease, so someone has brought him food at some point, but there’s no telling when or if they’ll be back. And he can’t wait inside the shrine for too long, in fact he can’t wait to get out - it’s not a place for the living to linger in.

With a sigh, Tobio turns on his heels and steps outside, gratefully inhaling the fresh air. For now he has no choice but to wait for nighttime and face his opponent head on.

* * *

  


“How’d it go with the shrine?”

Tobio stops by the door of what passes as the living-room of their headquarters with a sigh - inside, near the large _shoji_ doors opened towards the lush interior garden, Daichi Sawamura is working on this laptop at a low table. Only two years his senior, Daichi is one of the very few members of the Order who doesn’t belong to a gifted family, but his iron will and determination made him pull through and go up the ranks surprisingly fast.

_That and his familiar._

Since the story of how each hunter and their familiar became bonded is mostly a private affair, he doesn’t know how Sawamura managed to subdue a _half-__yōkai _as powerful as his silver fox, Koushi, but their obvious closeness is quite unsettling. Koushi has bright, coppery brown eyes and a lean, almost feminine build, accentuated by the thin black_ yukata _he’s wearing, in stark contrast to everyone else’s modern clothing, exuding a delicate grace which looks nothing but innocent to the unsuspecting and even now the _half-yōkai _is leaning against his master’s back, an arm resting lazily over Daichi’s shoulder.

The mere sight makes Kageyama uncomfortable - he doesn’t think he could do this with anyone and hopes he won’t have to, either. 

“I found it, but there isn’t much to it,” he mutters, making his way inside the room to join his superior. “Looks like it belongs to some poor kid and built by equally poor people. Old rotten wood, the roof is leaking and the door doesn’t even close properly. The seals looked new, but who knows… At any rate, there’s no inscription or anything, I only saw a photo and-…”

“And what?”

He shrugs, inwardly arguing that it was irrelevant, even though the _half-yōkai _he knows look pretty much like they did in life, except for the moments when they transform, showing their true nature. But the reason he didn’t want to take too close a look at the boy’s photo and even less thought of capturing it with his phone was…

“I don’t know, he was just so young and… fuck. It turned me upside down, I guess,” Tobio mutters, gaze trailing involuntarily towards Koushi’s legs, stretched over the door frame into the pitch black of outside. The matte, profuse darkness of the courtyard appears ominous. It’s almost two years since he left his parents’ flat to move to old Master Ukai’s current residence – a large, traditional Japanese house surrounded by large gardens even if it’s in the middle of the city – it hardly looks safe and is creepy as fuck too.

Daichi sighs. “Well, these things are ugly,” he says, eyes still on the laptop screen as the younger plops on the mat in front of him. “But if Master Ukai thinks this is a good idea… a good match for you I mean, then he must be onto something.”

_A good match?_

It’s the first time he’s hearing this. Since Tobio never gave much thought to the whole familiar business in the first place, it never occurred to him that a hunter and their familiar should be in any way compatible, he thought it’s only a matter of being able to subdue the respective spirit. Maybe that’s what Daichi meant, that it’s a matter of _power_, but the suggestion makes anxiety creep in regardless. 

“Kageyama, maybe you shouldn’t overthink this.”

But it’s too late, Tobio is already down that path, trying to think of the other hunters and their familiars, and what match could possibly be between them. He doesn’t know about the older hunters or about Master Ukai himself, and there’s only two other people close to his age in the Order, Daichi and a shy, introverted boy named Tadashi Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is hardly a skilled fighter and probably the last person in this world able to subdue a _half-__yōkai, _but to his blind luck (although the situation in itself could hardly be called luck) his only childhood friend was turned and became his familiar. _Which isn’t really helpful, because Tsukishima is still the worst thing ever._

“Did he choose everyone else’s familiar as well?” He bites his lip, uncertain. “Did he choose Koushi for you?”

“No.” This time it’s the fox answering, with the shadow of a smile and eyes glinting as his delicate hands slide down Sawamura’s shoulders from behind. “He can only make a suggestion, but ultimately it’s _us_ choosing.”

“Based on what?”

Koushi says nothing but his lips twitch and his eyes widen a bit, as if he’s drinking in Tobio’s worry, enjoying it as it grows.

“Based on nothing in particular and every situation is different, you can ask Tadashi and the others,” Daichi grumbles eventually, rolling his eyes. “At any rate, there’s no big deal. It sounds like it, but it’s not. You’ll be in charge anyway.” Behind him, Koushi nods quickly, with a shit-eating grin. 

_This is very reassuring… _“Well, anyway, I’ll try the shrine again in a couple of days, see if I can find someone who can tell me anything in the village, but tonight I was thinking of following the other lead. I’ll go to that_ yōkai _club and…I don’t know, spy on him or something.”

Which might just be a dreadful idea – the _half-__yōkai _lure the club patrons and feed on them, so he could only either suffer the same fate or start a fight in self-defense, at any rate get into some kind of trouble. Maybe there is a faint possibility of things going smoothly, but Tobio painfully lacks the skills and finesse to navigate such dangerous situations. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Here's a teasing chap for y'all :P

To say that Tobio is currently uncomfortable is an understatement.

The nightclub is one of the last places someone as unsocial as him would ever set foot in, but it has to be done if he wants to find the boy from the shrine. No, he _was_ a boy, now he’s something different, foul, dangerous – the hunter reminds himself, stomach cringing, not in fear of what awaits him inside, but from the sheer realization of how tough this whole familiar business is probably going to turn out. Master Ukai made him see _something_ he wasn’t supposed to, something which will not benefit his work in the future. Never before did he consider the _half-yōkai _he was hunting as real people, who had an actual human life before it was brutally, tragically taken from them. Tobio knows he can’t afford that sort of compassion, and if he slips into it everything will go to hell.

This gnawing thought numbs the worries he _should_ have for tonight. It’s risky and he doesn’t really have a plan, and the safest thing (which he didn’t do) would have been to follow Daichi’s suggestion and bring Yamaguchi along with him, except probably his fellow hunter would have been even more awkward and above all he really doesn’t feel the need to be told that everything he does is wrong about every two seconds by Tadashi’s familiar. 

The brunet offers his fake ‘work’ ID in the lobby along with the fee, with no problems. And no wonder, the woman behind the grated window is human and her gaze sweeps over him without the usual spark of recognition, maybe just a little suspicious at his youthful appearance. Trouble can’t be too far ahead though, because tonight Kageyama is not wearing his regular black contacts, the particular dark-blue of his irises which is a dead giveaway of his lineage and thus occupation exposed for everyone to see.

The club is fairly large, the spacious hall bathed in dim, blue and purple lights which give the plush of the sofas and glass of the low tables an enticing shine. There’s a bar on the side and the hunter wanders towards it slowly, carefully taking in his surroundings, then proceeds to perch on one of the high stools, having yet to observe the stage in the back of the room. It only takes one glance around to realize that he’d stand out even without any _yōkai _around – the club’s patrons are mostly older men and a few women huddled together at a remote table; in any case everyone is notably older than he is. If not for his forced career choice, Tobio would have been just a random college kid who would have favored other distractions instead of this expensive ‘exotic dance’ club. Now – he realizes with a pang of annoyance – he might even run the risk of being hit on by one of the other customers, which really is the last thing he needs.

_Fuck..._

With a deep sigh, Kageyama turns around and leans forward on his elbows, fixing the spotless tabletop. He doesn’t usually drink, so when the bartender drifts closer he has a long moment of indecision before ordering a JB on the rocks without meeting the man’s gaze. He should pretend to pay attention to the show, if only to try and avoid arousing unwanted interest from other people at the bar. 

And now that it comes to it, Tobio wonders if he’ll be able to recognize the-… his potential familiar. He didn’t snap a photo with his phone back at the shrine and his memory of the boy’s face is surprisingly vague save for one thing – _his smile_. It was so bright, so happy, and so incredibly _pure_ that the thought of that having been perverted into the twisted foulness of the _yōkai _is almost physically painful. He takes a large gulp of his drink to fight the feeling off, but has no time to dwell on it as someone slips into the seat right next to him, with a motion a little too fluid and gracious to be human.

“Hey,” the newcomer says, leaning against the bar. His voice is soft and inviting, like incense smoke.

“Hi,” the brunet grumbles in turn, glass spun a little nervously between his fingers. Damn he hates meeting strangers.

“Come here often?” the other asks, with a clear hint of irony, and Kageyama turns slightly to look at him. As he suspected, it’s a _half-yōkai_ somewhere in his early or maybe mid-twenties (not that his appearance is relevant in this matter), with a lean build favored by the black dress shirt and slacks, sharply-styled chestnut hair and dark gemlike eyes hidden behind a fancy pair of glasses. His skin is so flawlessly pale that it looks almost translucent and Tobio can’t help thinking that by far the most annoying thing about these creatures is how fucking _beautiful_ they all are.

“All the time,” he replies with equal irony, his free hand coming up so that he can rest his chin in it. “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” the _yōkai _says calmly, motioning to the bartender. “I saw you here and couldn’t help wondering if we’re in for a shitstorm, by any chance. Did you come here to start trouble, _hunter_?”

Tobio doesn’t even flinch – he knew this was coming and if shit goes downhill he’s confident he can handle this guy, at least.

“Not at all. I’m not armed.”

“Do you have a death wish, then?” the other inquires, in the same pleasant, polite tone.

“No, but I don’t think I’m in any danger. I came alone tonight, unarmed and with no disguise as a sign of goodwill, but my friends know I’m here. And I have quite a few friends, too.”

The _yōkai _sighs dramatically, shifting closer. “But then… why are you here? Was it a stupid challenge of some sort? Are you just trying to get on our nerves? What could _possibly_ be the reason?”

Well, it is a legit question, too bad he can be completely honest except for this one thing.

“I like this sort of clubs,” the hunter says eventually, instantly cursing himself for avoiding the word ‘strip’. It probably made him sound like a shy kid who’s too embarrassed to even say certain words. “I want to enjoy myself on my night off and, well, as far as someone like me is concerned _your kind_ is the ultimate forbidden fruit.”

The ‘forbidden fruit’ thing seems to amuse the _yōkai _because he bursts into giggles, nearly spluttering into the glass he’d just taken to his mouth.

Then the music changes, getting a little louder and the beat livelier, and Kageyama turns back towards the stage, determined to ignore the other for now. Maybe he’ll get the message and walk away – the club is packed with helpless humans completely clueless as to _what_ he is.

A metallic swing is lowered slowly, gleaming against the deep red of the silk curtains, stopping about nine feet above the floor. Then the curtains – which had closed behind the previous dancer a little while before - are drawn back again, allowing the moving colorful lights to sweep over a petite silhouette and Tobio flinches. 

“But this is a place for old farts, you know?” the _yōkai _whispers, lips nearly brushing against the brunet’s ear teasingly.

“I don’t know, are you old?” Kageyama retorts flatly, without turning back.

It’s the boy from the shrine, without a doubt. He’s small and thin, skin distinctively pale, but his hair is not light brown or maybe dark blond as Tobio thought, but a bright, carrot red. It’s weird, because usually _yōkai _go for more discrete shades in their coloring, but it gives him a bizarre charm. He’s wearing very short, black sequin shorts topped with a tight sports jacket of the same material, zipped all the way up, black knee pads and converses and the whole outfit is hardly sensual, not on someone so young looking anyway.

The boy walks slowly, faking a lazy almost-stumble towards the front of the stage, where several patrons are suddenly huddling, quite impatiently, but the little _yōkai _doesn’t grace them with as much as a glance. He doesn’t smile either, nor it’s his expression sultry or remotely provocative, not even when his hips begin to sway lightly with the beat, teasingly. He turns his back on the crowd and bends his knees, but only to jump upwards and grab the swing.

There’s a loud, thrilled gasp from the audience and Kageyama snorts. They’re all clearly too dumb or too drunk, because it should be obvious that someone so small – or anyone really – couldn’t normally jump so high in the air. The boy is not just small, he’s also thin, lacking the muscles of a real acrobat, yet no one seems to realize that something is off about this performance. Maybe they think there’s some clever trick at work and are just happy for the exquisite entertainment. 

After deftly climbing into the sling, the ginger lets himself fall backward, to hang by his knees only, eyes closed as he’s swaying above the stage in what looks like complete abandon while countless bills fly below, thrown by too eager hands. Then he straightens his legs, a second short of falling and hauls himself back up to launch in a routine of risky acrobatics.

“So what’s your type?” the first _yōkai _inquires, pressing a little too close for Tobio’s comfort. In fact, it’s awkward as hell but he needs to act cool and relaxed if he wants to keep up the pretense of having come here only for some fun.

“Hmm…”

He knows what he should say – unabashedly so if he wants to be convincing – but fears giving rise to the suspicion of targeting the boy for some reason. So he decides to wait, and pretend to make up his mind after watching the show. Anyway, merely expressing an opinion is unlikely to get him anywhere, considering the loud bunch of patrons crammed around the stage in adoration. 

“Well?”

“How much for a lap dance?” Kageyama avoids the question, not that he is actually ready for something like that.

“We don’t do lap dances here or anything else, in public, as peculiar as that may sound. We only take customers in the private rooms, if they can afford the fee, of course.”

“And what happens there?”

“We give them lap dances,” the _yōkai _says, and Tobio can feel the smirk in the tone of his voice, even if he doesn’t see it.

_Yeah sure, before you eat them._

The brunet bites his lip, focusing on the stage where the petite redhead finally leaves his swing – simply lets himself drop from it before twisting in the air and latching himself onto the pole, the bold move having caused more than a few shocked gasps and even a muffled cry. He slips slowly onto the floor in a spin, ending up down on his knees and back arched, before pushing away with a fluid motion followed by a gracious backwards tumble.

“What if I wanted the little ginger?” Kageyama asks casually, turning away to face the _yōkai_, purposely ignoring his real target.

The other studies him for a long moment, gemlike eyes squinting. “Are you some kind of pervert?”

Tobio shrugs, trying to ignore the insult. Considering how young the boy looks, it certainly seems that way, but then again he’s a _yōkai _and this place is fucked up anyway so he figures there must be something inherently dirty about all patrons. He motions towards the stage, where the song has ended and the petite redhead sits with his legs playfully hanging off the edge, several older men gathered around him like birds of prey. “At least I look better than them,” the hunter says. “I think if you ask him, he’ll prefer me too.”

“Ha! Why would he prefer someone he can’t feed on? You may enjoy safety privileges here because of who you are, _ō-sama_, but don’t expect to be popular too… Oh, and you don’t get a discount either.” 

“Oikawa.”

Suddenly, the brunet is aware of a tall, solid silhouette hovering very close, ready to push itself into the miniscule space between himself and the _yōkai _who approached him, giving a distinctively bad vibe. Still, the newcomer is clearly human.

“Ushijima-san, your drink is ready,” the _yōkai _says smoothly, pressing a glass into the man’s hand. “And there’s no need to get impatient, I’m _all yours_.”

Tobio sighs, feigning indifference and refusing to look at the older man, who won’t walk out of this place in very good shape at the end of the night (that if he doesn’t end up dead altogether).

“Wait here, I will see to your wish, hunter,” Oikawa whispers quickly, before his client’s arm hooks around his with unsettling determination, pulling him away from the bar. “But it’s going to cost you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #slowburn

The _yōkai _left, dragged away by the aggressively impatient client and once more Tobio finds himself alone, left to his own devices. Which is not very good - because someone else unwanted might decide to approach him and get in the way - but for now he must be patient, and all he can do is observe.

Further away in the back of the hall, the red-haired _yōkai _eventually hops down from the stage, intent on abandoning his audience for now, but then suddenly one of the men grabs at him rather brutally. Kageyama doesn’t hear what the man is shouting, but can’t help wondering why the club tolerates such rude patrons on principle, even considering the circumstances. He didn’t see any bouncer around and no one intervenes now either, which is strange to say the least. Yet the troublemaker doesn’t get to make a scene – somehow he ends up sprawled out on the floor on his back, having lost the grip on his prey and then the boy literally _walks over_ the guy’s stomach and chest, tiny feet trampling mercilessly over the expensive suit, and no one dares stop him. The rest of the crowd is also disdainfully ignored after this incident, the petite _yōkai_ turning his back on them and disappearing behind a beaded curtain. 

Kageyama snorts and turns away, taking a long sip of his drink and while he can’t allow himself to fully enjoy it, the burning liquid helps ease some of the awkwardness he’s still feeling. ‘It’s no big deal’ Daichi would say – he _always_ says that (in a very laconic and unhelpful manner too).

_Yeah, no big deal._

Tobio inwardly argues that this will at least serve to know his potential familiar a little bit before anything else, because at this point he has no idea about how to get the information he needs.

He doesn’t get to wait for too long. The one named Oikawa doesn’t return, instead the hunter is approached by another _yōkai_, this time a little blonde girl. Although her real age is impossible to tell, the stark white sundress falling just below her knees and the star-shaped barrette holding her short hair back on one side make her look much too young, _obscenely_ so, and Kageyama’s discomfort returns full force at the thought of how filthy this place really is. This calls not only for a much-needed refill of his glass, but he’s less and less inclined to take any pity on the humans around, tempted to think that they rather deserve what’s coming to them.

He is simply told a price for the allowed half-hour and given the official ‘rules’ as the blonde leads him through a door on the side of the bar, beyond which there’s the private rooms area. Tobio finds himself ushered into one of them and again left alone with his drink. The round room is pleasant, with a semicircular plush couch, the middle occupied by a small table and a thin metal pole, but he’s guessing it’s a tad darker than it should be, and the glittery walls muffle all the sounds from the outside (and the inside too, most likely). One less attentive wouldn’t notice though, because the same music as the one in the club is filtered through the sound system, at a lower volume, giving a false impression of proximity. 

The setting is just _perfect_ for an ambush and the brunet wonders whether they’re not planning to pull a nasty stunt on him after all. He ponders, sipping on his drink. They wouldn’t let the ginger handle it, would they? Not all alone, at any rate, he’s too small.

Eventually, his host walks in with soft, soundless steps, and the first thing Tobio notices before anything else is that the boy’s dispassionate expression from earlier is gone. His large, caramel eyes assess the hunter with interest (possibly some concern too), in a manner that has nothing coy or flirty, but can only be described as staring. 

“Hey,” the brunet greets, deciding to plop onto the couch and try to look relaxed and unsuspecting.

“Hey…”

The petite _yōkai _lets himself into the room with careful moves, slipping on the other side of the table, his eyes never leaving Kageyama, as if avid to catch even the tiniest move. That gaze is familiar, even if the redhead’s is more intense than what he’s used to - Daichi’s fox does it sometimes too. It’s a gaze meant to flatter in an oddly exciting way, when in truth is only looking for weaknesses in the one so beheld. 

“So, what’s your name?” Tobio asks before suddenly remembering that _half-yōkai_ never tell their names. Never their real, human names, at any rate.

The boy shakes his head, crawling up on the table with his knees and hooking one arm around the pole. “What is _your_ name, _ō__-sama_?”

_God._ He won’t hear the end of that joke anytime soon. The other’s voice – which has a genderless quality to it - is soft though, void of any apparent emotion as he speaks it, as if he really means no offence. _Yet._

“Do I need a name?”

The ginger blinks, pulling backwards a little and sitting on his heels. “Wow, that is so… extra… Of course not. I mean, why would you?”

_Yeah. Fuck, it’s great to be me. _He shrugs, mustering a smug smirk.

“So, were you told the rules?” the boy wants to know, hands resting on his lap, in the pale and generous space between the shorts and kneepads.

Kageyama nods. “Yeah. No touching.”

“That’s right,” his host confirms with a little smile.

“So, _I_’m not allowed to touch _you_,” Tobio clarifies, “But _you_ can rip _me_ to shreds, yes?”

The smile disappears from the ginger’s face and he shakes his head slowly, as if he’s offended, but it’s more like it didn’t belong there in the first place, foreign, like the boy isn’t used to smiling and it was a rare occurrence, an accident. There’s something sad but oddly genuine about this and Tobio can’t but find it refreshing after the other _yōkai’s_ fake charm.

“We don’t do that here.”

“Oh. You do it elsewhere?”

Glass set aside, the hunter leans forward in his seat, with a grin. Tobio may be at a loss when it comes to being charming himself, but he’s been told he’s good at being creepy and even causing discomfort upon occasion. Yet, it seems the other can play this game too, because he leans in turn, closing the distance between them some more.

“Are you really here to be entertained,_ ō__-sama_ ?”

“Yes.” The brunet holds his gaze, unblinking. “So what can you do for me?”

The boy pulls away and stands up on the table, the corners of his mouth twitching and fingers trailing the side of the pole playfully. “Whatever you want,” he says smoothly, cocking his head expectantly.

“Is that so? If I wanted you to take your clothes off, you’d do it?”

“Of course. Do you want me to?”

Kageyama sighs, burrowing backwards into the plushy backrest. “No. Actually, I think you’re much too pretty like this, so I want you to show me… _you know what._”

Okay, that came out wrong and hardly to his professed purpose, but he hopes it can still be dismissed as a kink, albeit a rather fucked-up one. After all, the _yōkai_ really _are_ the ultimate forbidden fruit and while they make above-average beautiful humans, it’s their real appearance that’s truly impressive.

But the real problem is that like this he’s constantly reminded of the shrine photo, of that bright, luminous smile which belongs to another world, a million miles away from this rotten place – he can’t, not for the briefest moment, let himself forget that it’s gone, that that boy is _gone forever_ and in front of him stands a vastly different person. _Seriously, fuck this_. Tobio’s parents warned him that this job was going to be tough, dangerous, that it would suck and even be positively degrading at times, but he didn’t expect to… feel so_ heartbroken_.

“You get off on that?”

The ginger’s blunt question pulls him back from that dark place, only to plunge him back into this one. But at least, this one he can deal with a little better. 

“Maybe…” he offers with a lazy grin. “But I’m sure you had worse. I mean, to my credit, I don’t get off on you looking like a _helpless_ and _vulnerable_ kid. As, let it be mentioned, others foolishly do at their own peril.”

“Hmm… fair enough.”

The ginger steps closer and sinks to his knees on the edge of the table, teasingly so and really close, and proceeds to unzip the sports jacket, the black sequins parting to reveal more bare skin, glowing under the dim, bluish lights. Still, Tobio doesn’t look at his body but straight into his eyes which grow dark with the transformation, gaining even more of a beady shine and the caramel of the irises turning ink-black. The boy’s fingers have also darkened from tips to knuckles and gone sharp, like a bird’s bony talons and when the garment is peeled off and thrown aside, it’s only to be replaced by a large pair of wings which burst from behind his shoulders and are quick to wrap protectively around his thin torso.

Kageyama stares, secretly wondering if ‘fallen angel’ isn’t by any chance too much of a cliché as he takes in the glossy black plumage. It’s fitting though – the black wings, everything. _A fallen angel of death._

“Wow… you’re beautiful.”

The petite _yōkai_ rises and draws back, slipping coyly behind the pole. There’s a sudden air of prudence about him - although it would hardly make sense for him to feel more vulnerable in this form. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs with a tentative smile. “So are you.”

His returned compliment is dismissed – Tobio is used to _yōkai_ having a particular fascination for his eye color, all the more since it spells danger for them, but it’s rather a collector’s fascination more than anything else. Indeed, he’s heard the phrase ‘I think I’ll keep your eyeballs after I’m done with you’ more times than he’d like to recall. 

“Are you a crow or a raven?”

The boy steps from the table onto the couch and walks up to the hunter, wings pulled back and fluttering slightly and again sinks to his knees right next to him. He’s much too close, yet no warmth is radiating from his small body, if anything it seems to absorb the heat in the room, leaving behind a deathly cold. His eyes seem wider too, with dilated pupils – just black bleeding into black – and it almost looks like arousal. _Almost._

“Is that a trick question?”

“Tell me something true.” Kageyama doesn’t budge, taking his glass casually to his lips and pretending not to notice that his personal space is being invaded.

“Why? Are you _flirting_ with me?”

“Am I breaking the rules?” the brunet asks, mildly interested.

He’s rewarded with a grin, small and wicked, as the other cocks his head slightly and bites his bottom lip. “Maybe…” Then he’s serious again. “I would like to touch you. Would you like to touch me?”

“Yeah.” _Too bad we’re not on the same page here._

“What would you do if you could touch me?”

The ginger presses closer, resting his elbow next to Tobio’s shoulder, pushing his luck. Or maybe he’s not the one pushing his luck, who knows. Still, the drink only helped Tobio find his words, without dulling his senses, so it’s unlikely he’d be caught off guard.

“I would touch you.”

One eyebrow arching into a half scowl, the boy pulls back a bit, bringing his knees up to hug them. “Hey… _you’re_ not supposed to be teasing _me_.” His wings come to wrap around his body again, defensive.

“I’m not supposed to do any of this.”

“So you _are_ breaking the rules.”

Kageyama turns to the side, facing the other fully, face straight. “Tell me something true. Something about you, anything.” Of course, he probably won’t get anything; a crafty lie at best, although the redhead doesn’t seem the lying type, more like the type who avoids the truth. His expression may have become unreadable, but he’s really looking for a way out of this. Maybe he’s feeling out of his depth, unused to let things go quite that far. Unsurprisingly, he probably doesn’t need so much talking with his regular clients.

“Okay. I’ll tell you something about crows,” the petite yōkai concedes eventually, not meeting the brunet’s gaze. “They, uh… won’t even wait until your body gets cold before they dig in.”

Tobio blinks and struggles to take a breath, suddenly having the intuition of something really, really horrible behind that phrase. It may mean absolutely nothing, just a half-assed attempt at freaking him out, but it could mean other things too and he’s afraid it’s the latter. It just feels too much like he’s getting closer to the thing he _has_ to know but would give anything not to.

“Oh,” he says, uselessly, and hoping his composure isn’t sleeping too much. “I-”

“Your time’s up,” the boy says, pointing to the flickering light above the door. “Will you come see me again?”


	4. Chapter 4

After leaving the club Kageyama went back home, finding no one to talk to, and tried to get some much-needed sleep before the night was over. No luck though, sleep obstinately refusing to come, such that the break of dawn found the young hunter back on his feet. Tobio can’t say that his night went too bad, but it wasn’t good either. He didn’t find out anything and moreover now he’s even less thrilled about the whole getting a familiar thing than before. But he must follow orders and suspects that discarding Master Ukai’s idea in favor of finding another _half-yōkai_ would prove even more problematic. 

Maybe there’s something he missed when visiting the shrine, Tobio thinks, his steps heavy and slow as he makes his way through the thick fog, back into the desolate suburbs. The neighborhood looks even worse than it did the first time in the autumnal gloom, a vague smoke scent already marking the approach of winter.

_And there’s something about crows… _Crows feeding on a corpse - it crosses the brunet’s mind at the sight of the countless black birds perched in the trees around. That’s what the boy meant. _Probably his own corpse._

Kageyama quickly dismisses the thought with a slight cringe. Still, whatever this is, he must steel himself and fucking deal with it!

If anything, the small shrine appears even more decrepit in the dim light – even if it’s almost noon now – and the fragile door is fully open for a change. There’s someone inside, the hunter realizes, the sudden observation serving to bring him back to the present moment. But it can’t be the _yōkai,_ they don’t move around in daylight!

Both hands clenched on the weapons hidden under his peacoat, Tobio draws close enough to peer inside. His fears turn out to be unfounded – the intruder is just an old lady currently busying herself with a broom around the central part of the shrine, which is now lit by a few scented candles placed close to its foot on one side. Their shy flicker does little to dissipate the darkness inside the small enclosure, instead it makes it look more sinister, at least to him.

The woman halts her work and turns, tired eyes questioning behind cheap glasses as she assesses the young man and Kageyama mumbles an awkward greeting, nodding. 

“Did you go to school with Shoyou?” she asks with a wry smile.

_Shoyou._

As his grip on the weapons eases inconspicuously, Tobio’s gaze trails from the old lady to the table with the picture, noticing a fresh food paper bag placed on the offerings tray. She must be… a friend? Family? He hesitates, struggling for words.

“How old are you?” the woman goes on, ignoring his silence. “I think maybe he would have been the same age as you now…”

He definitely can’t say he’s the boy’s schoolmate, because then he would know what happened to him. And that’s the very thing he’s been trying to find out.

“Um, no,” Tobio says eventually. “I’m a history student, actually I’m-… I’m doing a project on shrines. And I couldn’t help noticing that this one is new?”

The old lady’s gaze is less warm now and he doesn’t blame her – as per the explanation he’s not here to pay his respects but to sightsee, sort of, and she’s probably a little bothered by it, too. But he’s wrong – she sighs heavily, setting the broom aside and crouching to fumble with the candles.

“It happened four years ago. Didn’t you see it in the news?”

Kageyama shakes his head. “How old was he?”

“Oh… he’d only just turned sixteen. It was a horrible, horrible tragedy!” she shakes her head, arms coming to hug her own torso.

_Sixteen?_ The boy looks younger though, maybe because he’s a skinny shrimp. And if he was sixteen four years ago, that makes him about the same age as Tobio, if not a little older. Only Shoyou will never age.

“At least if I hadn’t known them… But Hinata Mariko lived just next door and I’d known her since before she had the kids, Shoyou and the baby girl. But they’re gone now; after Shoyou’s death she took the little one and moved away, in the city. This neighborhood is filthy, cursed! It’s never been much of a place to raise a child, but it has gotten worse and worse lately.”

The hunter can bet on it, although probably the old lady doesn’t even imagine the whole truth.

“Can you tell me… uh… I mean, why he was put in a shrine though?” he asks, uncertain. “It’s rather unusual in this day and age, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s because… Well, it’s not what you might think, Shoyou was a good kid. He really was, his mother never complained, she was proud even! He wasn’t doing too badly at school and he played volleyball at his school’s club, he was really good at it!” the woman states, pointing towards the table and the dusty volleyball resting on it. “Still, it would have been better if he wasn’t…”

Tobio thinks that’s a tad weird since the _half-yōkai _is so short, but she goes on before he can inwardly expand on that. “Many times, he stayed up late at school because of the volleyball club and the school is a bit far from here. But it’s the only school around, so… Anyway, it happened one evening when he was coming back from school.”

The brunet swallows hard, really not wanting to hear what comes next but glued in his spot, limbs growing rigid.

“The police found them all shortly afterwards,” the woman chooses to say first, as if it were any solace in it when there’s none. “Five of them bastards, they’d crawled dead drunk out of some pub and were looking to have some more fun for the night. They knocked him off his bicycle and beat him before taking turns… And after they had their way, the wretched beasts strangled him and threw his body out there in the open field.” She pauses to clumsily wipe tears away from under the glasses. “By morning, when he was found, the crows had already begun to feast… It was horrible! Absolutely dreadful! Then the priest came, gave the body one look and said to the people to build a shrine as quickly as possible and put him in it, because he’ll turn.”

Tobio is vaguely aware that inside his clenched fists his nails are digging into his palms, he feels sick and faint, as if an evil spell is suddenly upon him and he can’t do anything to fight it. He blinks quickly, hoping that the sudden moisture threatening to spill goes unnoticed, and scrambles closer to the inner part of the shrine, where Hinata Shoyou is supposedly _resting_, so that the old woman can’t see his face.

* * *

“Daichi couldn’t find you,” the fox _yōkai_ says, pushing the sliding wardrobe door open and revealing the young hunter curled up inside, hugging his knees with an absent stare.

Tobio looks up eventually to meet the other’s coppery eyes, staring at him inquisitively. Then his gaze drops back down.

“I can’t do this,” he says flatly, lips pressing into a thin line. “Daichi says it’s not a big deal, but I can’t. Fuck it.”

“Daichi is not very good with words,” Koushi offers with a shrug. “What it is? What did you find out?”

Kageyama doesn’t know if he should speak to Sawamura’s familiar instead of one of his fellow hunters or even Master Ukai himself, but until now everyone’s been as helpful as a boil in the butt, as if things weren’t bad enough.

“I was wondering why people don’t just burn the body of someone suspected of becoming a _yōkai_ instead of sealing them inside a shrine. It’s not like it’s working anyway, don’t they know that no offering can appease them and that they don’t stay in the shrine, as they should?”

The silver fox snorts. “Because if you burn the body, the spirit will not find its peace. It will just claim another body, the body of a _living person_ that is. That’s hardly desirable, and their wrath will be even greater. Or so the saying goes, because it’s not so much wrath as it is hunger and that can never be sated for good.”

The poor old lady had brought Shoyou a bag of freshly-baked pork buns…

“What’s going on, Kou-chan? Did you find-…? Oh.”

“His name was Hinata Shoyou,” Tobio mumbles, burying his face in his hands and ignoring Daichi, who joined his familiar in the wardrobe door. “He was molested, then strangled and thrown on the side of the road for the crows to feast on him.”

The older hunter remains silent, probably struggling to find something useful to say and not getting anywhere.

“So, what the hell am I supposed to do?! How the _actual fuck_ am I supposed to deal with this?!” he cries, choking half-way.

“There’s nothing to do,” Koushi replies calmly, voice soft but somewhat impersonal. “It already happened and you had nothing to do with it anyway. You can’t fix any of that.”

“No, but I can make it worse, can’t I?! Suppose he doesn’t want to be my familiar, then what?! I’d have to kill him!”

“Kageyama, he’s already dead,” Daichi intervenes eventually, with a sigh. “I know that it’s a very sad situation but he’s not-… I mean, you’re giving him a chance to remain in this world without others paying the price for it. I don’t know if you’d call it life exactly, but it’s still better than nothing.” His arm wraps protectively around his familiar’s shoulders as he speaks and he sighs again. “Maybe you should just ask him first, but if he refuses you have no other choice than to try to capture him.”

* * *

Tobio bit his lip instead of asking whether Koushi just said yes, whether he simply _accepted_ Sawamura as his master. Somehow he doubts it, but didn’t feel like prodding into their relationship in any way. After all, every situation is different. Probably. Fuck. He’s wary of seeing the _half-yōkai_ again – _Shoyou, his name his Shoyou!_ – because he doesn’t know how to act anymore and doesn’t think he’ll manage to be as composed as he was the last time.

And that is dangerous.

The club is crowded as usual and this time Kageyama is wearing a cap and a pair of shades, to avoid being recognized. He spots the blonde girl who helped him before and asks for the petite ginger straight away, before ordering a neat whiskey at the bar. A small nasty voice in the back of his mind whispers that he might get used to indulging, and sooner than he thinks.

After the fee is paid he’s taken into a private room, similar to the one from last time, and the small space feels just as unsettling. Tobio plops onto the plush couch, taking a large gulp of his drink. This time he may not be that lucky, so he must be careful. He keeps staring pensively into his glass even when his host creeps in, silent like a black shadow.

“I see that you’re back, _ō__-sama,_” Hinata says, unsurprised. “Does that mean I charmed you?”

The brunet takes him in slowly – the boy is wearing a similar outfit as before, except there are no sequins; his clothes are of a matte, profuse black which contrasts with the carrot-red of his hair and there’s a certain air about him that makes him look like a crow more than ever. It’s both beautiful and creepy as fuck.

“Somewhat,” Kageyama admits with a half-smile. “Although thanks to your comment about crows I’m stressed out every single time I go to take out the garbage.”

The ginger smirks, biting his bottom lip. “Don’t worry, as long as you’re still alive they’ll be more interested in the garbage. All they want is something to eat, you know?”

_All _you_ want is something to eat too, I bet…_

“So… you’re back to breaking the rules, huh?” the petite _yōkai_ asks in a low voice, mirth in his caramel eyes as he climbs onto the table to again sit on his heels in front of Tobio. As he draws closer, his eyes widen slightly and his irises turn black.

“I say fuck the rules,” the hunter replies, taking a sip of his drink. He thinks it’s almost funny, how Hinata’s clients – who must be already intoxicated in various degrees – must mistake the look in those eyes for arousal, when it’s nothing but bestial hunger. “I was wondering – what do you think about your regular clients?”

Hinata blinks, surprised this time. “What do I think?” His bottom lip sticks out. “Whatever… What would you think?”

“Well, I would think this sucks, because from what I’ve seen I’m guessing you only get old farts and they probably don’t taste too good. Am I wrong?”

“Surely _you_’d be picky with food, _ō__-sama, _but I’ve never been. Crows don’t mind garbage, remember?”

“And meat even less,” Tobio offers with a sly smirk.

Fuck. He really shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t. Still, he chooses to roll up his shirt sleeve and stick out his left hand, wrist exposed. There’s an odd thrill to watching the boy’s eyes immediately drawn to the delicate skin and the pulsing veins visible underneath.

The ginger draws even closer, yet hesitates. “You really want this?”

“_You_ really want this.”

Small, bony fingers close around Kageyama’s arm cautiously before Hinata takes his wrist to his mouth and bites down, sharp pain shooting up the brunet’s arm. Yet he lets the _yōkai_ feed, gripped by a morbid curiosity which is anything but healthy, and feeling lightheaded much sooner than he should. To his surprise though, Hinata is not as greedy as he looked, letting go of his arm shortly, after he’s licked the wound closed.

Then he crawls forward unexpectedly, settling into the hunter’s lap and resting his hands on Tobio’s shoulders.

“…what about the rules?”

“Fuck the rules. You taste really good, _ō__-sama,_” he praises, a tad shyly, seeking the other’s lips first with his eyes, then with his own mouth. Granted, he doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing and the kiss is more a sloppy smooch than anything else, but Kageyama finds it endearing enough to feel a little elated, even if he couldn’t say he finds the redhead particularly attractive, considering _what_ he is. Still, his arms sneak around the boy’s thin waist, seeking to comfort more than anything. 

“You’re a mess,” the hunter whispers as Hinata pulls away for air, still hugging him and unable to help a sad smile.

“I want you so much,” the petite _yōkai_ whispers back, this time resting his forehead against Tobio’s, but there’s no mistaking his words. He only wants one thing and it becomes painfully obvious when the hunter feels the tell-tale bite of tiny claws into his shoulders.

“And I want you to become my familiar, Hinata Shoyou.”

At that, the ginger pulls back lightning-fast, and in the blink of an eye he’s on the opposite side of the room, eyes wide with unspoken horror. “Wha-… _How do you know my name?!_”

“I know everything about you,” Kageyama lies, even if he feels bad about it since he can see how each word of his increases the _yōkai_’s distress. “I know what happened to you too, how you ended up like this. That’s why I want to take you in.”

Hinata opens his mouth, but at first nothing but a rushed exhale comes out. “Your _familiar_?! What the fuck is that?!” He looks absolutely horrified. “Like a… like a _pet_ or something?!”

Tobio shakes his head, with a small sigh. “No. Like a weapon.”

“Ha! As if… as if I’d fight for _you_! No… you won’t,_ ō__-sama! _You won’t ever get your hands on me! ”

Then he is gone and the brunet is left to scowl into what’s left of his drink. This will have to go down the hard way after all…


	5. Chapter 5

“Is that the shrine?” Yamaguchi asks, pointing at the tree grove, already wrapped in the rising evening fog.

“Yeah.”

There are still some hours left until dark, theoretically early enough to be on the safe side, but Tobio is annoyed that by now they still didn’t get this over with. He would have done it while the sun was up (which would have been _the safest_), but this time Master Ukai made him wait for Yamaguchi and his familiar to tag along, which is all the more irritating since that implies he can’t take on the petite ginger _yōkai_ on his own, Tadashi is not of much use on a general basis and his smartass familiar never misses a chance to get on his nerves.

“Wow… some shrine that is and some precious prey must be inside,” the tall, bespectacled blond observes, as if reading Kageyama’s thoughts. “Why am I not surprised that Master Ukai chose this familiar for you? A little crow in a broom closet.”

The brunet grits his teeth but remains quiet, only slipping out of the driver’s seat and slamming the car door shut a little too hard. Facing the looming shadows ahead, he takes a few slow steps forward, briefly patting the weapons tucked under his coat as he waits for the other two to follow.

“Wait here, I’ll go inside alone,” he says eventually, throwing a brief glance towards his fellow hunter. Fortunately, Yamaguchi is not the proactive type and prefers to just do what he’s told rather than take initiative.

“But what if you get your ass kicked?” Tsukishima pipes up again. “Master Ukai wanted us to go with you to make sure that you don’t-”

“If I get my ass kicked then I’m good for nothing and that’s what it is!” Tobio snaps, without turning his head.

Fuck! He can’t be angry now, just when he needs to focus, and as if he wasn’t feeling bad enough already! The thought that he’s doing something wrong lingers in the back of Tobio’s mind, however irrational, and he can’t shake it off. That _thing_ is a people-devouring _yōkai_ \- even if it looks like Hinata Shoyou – and it must be dealt with.

The wooden door creaks under his touch and Kageyama slips inside the shrine as quietly as he can, instantly engulfed by the deep darkness inside. There’s a chill in the room he hadn’t felt before and the young hunter feels it seeping through his clothes, through skin and flesh, into his very bones. As soon as his eyes adjust, the shape of the inner shrine becomes contoured in the faint, barely-there light pouring in through the cracks in the roof, red and green wax seals unexpected drops of bright color against the dusty old paper of the _shoji_ panels. 

_Well, fuck it._

A practiced hand draws the long knife sheathed below his waistline and Kageyama adjusts his grip on the handle before slashing at the seals with a precise move and wedging the tip in between the panels. As expected, they’re stuck from dirt and the deforming wood frames, unopened, _not meant to be opened_. Still, they give in with a bit of a pull, eventually sliding apart to reveal the insides. The hunter’s eyes instantly fall onto the white silk bedding and pillows at the bottom, looking disturbed as an unmade bed someone just left.

The inner shrine is empty.

Tobio blinks, an alerted scowl creeping on his face. Where is Hinata?! The ‘bed’ is here and the body should have been laid in it, but-

_No. He’s here._

The realization comes too late, a split second before a weight bears down on his back, shoving his torso downwards into the shrine bottom below, such that his face is plunged into the crumpled sheets. A claw digs into the nape of his neck while another grips into the wrist of his knife hand, the _yōkai_’_s_ knees pressing painfully into the small of his back.

“I knew you were coming, _ō-sama… _” 

_Yeah? Too bad you didn’t get ready then._

The brunet’s body twists in Hinata’s grip and the arm with the knife shoots forward, forcing the _yōkai_ to jump back onto the top of the shrine frame, wings fluttering briefly. His claws grip the old wood hard enough to make it partially crumble as Kageyama stands up and straightens his back, drawing a second knife.

“Come at me,” the hunter prompts calmly, tilting his head. As long as it’s still daytime, Hinata is trapped inside the shrine, he can’t get out, so his wings are more or less useless. He can’t escape and he was probably counting on finishing Tobio with that one surprise attack. And that was just his sheer predator instinct, most likely he has no fighting experience.

The ginger’s black eyes trail from Tobio’s face to the gleaming blades in his hands, unsure, then he moves to rip off a long piece of the upper frame, pointing it forward.

“I never killed anyone and I don’t want to start with you. So fuck off!”

Kageyama can’t help a snort. _Yōkai_ will say anything when they’re at a disadvantage, appeal to the hunters’ human side enough to distract them and make them vulnerable. Sure enough, in the next moment he has to duck to avoid the piece of wood flying towards his face and raise his arm as Hinata moves to attack him again.

The edge of a large wing sweeps at his face, scratching his cheek and blocking his vision, and a powerful kick knocks one of the knives from his hand, but Tobio is quick enough to use his now free hand to grab at his opponent, getting a hold of Hinata’s arm in turn. He uses his full strength to swing, shoving the petite _yōkai_ face-first into one side of the frame. The boy slumps against the panes, apparently dizzy from impact, but instead of collapsing manages to pull himself free from the hunter’s grip and to disappear behind the inner shrine.

“Hinata, give up,” Kageyama says with a sigh. “You can’t defeat me and there’s nowhere to run-”

His words are cut short by a loud cracking sound and light bursts in through the shattered back wall and he sees Hinata stepping out slowly into the whiteish swirls of fog. The boy stops, back turned, and Kageyama sees his wings dissolving as if torn into nothingness by the power of daylight, leaving behind only the thin white yukata Shoyou was laid to rest in. He silently drops on his knees, arms hanging limply to his sides, then hits the ground.

“KAGEYAMA! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!?”

Tobio ignores the call and the sound of steps hurrying in his direction as he walks forward slow and hesitant, really not wanting to see-… 

“Oh, _fuck!_” Yamaguchi says, leaning over the body lying on the ground.

Hinata looks horrible now, skin sheet-white and paper-dry and neck bruised purple, what’s visible of his arms and legs littered with ugly red gashes left by the crows’ beaks and claws. Yet it’s more tragic than it is gruesome and Tobio’s chest constricts painfully at the sight, to the extent that he’s unable to get himself to move.

“Oh wow, he looks even worse than I thought he would. Scrawny too,” Tsukishima points. “A little piece of slum trash.”

The brunet graces him with an icy glare, nodding curtly. “Yeah, really trash. Now pick him up.”

* * *

“They cleaned him up and put him in the old shrine outside. The binding spells have been applied already, now he just needs to get some rest and everything will be alright.”

Tobio takes the steaming cup of tea from Daichi’s hand and brings it to his lips absently. He didn’t expect things to go well in the first place, but somehow they actually went even worse. 

“He can’t fight,” he says quietly, fingers clenching around the porcelain despite the burn. “And he walked outside, probably hoping to die for good, rather than surrender to me. To be honest it feels like a fuck-up in more ways than one, if you ask me.”

He feels _rejected_, on top of everything else, as absurd as that may sound.

The older hunter comes to sit beside him on the mat, sighing. “Kageyama, you’re overthinking it again. He will learn how to fight, they all do, and he will naturally come to trust you when he sees that you have no intention hurt him. And that’s about it, the rest can’t be fixed and you shouldn’t attempt it.”

Right. He’s supposed to ignore Hinata’s tragic background, because there’s nothing left of that boy with the happy, carefree smile from the faded photo. Except that’s not true, because something _is_ there, even if it’s only the horror of his death. It lingers in Hinata’s eyes, radiates subtly from his whole person, making each movement, each word, each glance wary and cautious, overly defensive for someone with his powers. Why would he ever get to trust Tobio? These things are not as simple as Sawamura stated them, they can’t possibly be. Even without the boy’s trauma, it would take someone pleasant, open and communicative to provide him that sort of comfort and sadly Kageyama is anything but.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Daichi adds. “Once the bond is fully established, he will constantly seek your physical closeness. Just let him.”

Tobio flinches and his mouth gets ahead of his brain despite the awkwardness of the subject. “You mean like the way Koushi is always… um, always _touching_ you one way or the other?”

_‘One way or the other?’ Seriously…._

“Yeah. It may feel flattering, but they’re just feeding off of the vital energy your body is naturally exuding. Still better than your blood though.”

Tobio blinks, baffled but also secretly relieved. Maybe there was no reason to-… “So then, it’s not because he likes you.”

Still, maybe he shouldn’t have asked, Sawamura’s relationship with his familiar is none of his business and maybe they really _are_ close that way and-…Even if he may or may have not misinterpreted seeing Koushi in the other hunter’s bedroom one night, he has no right to pry. And the expression on Daichi’s face right now is hard to read – he seems… surprised? Offended? He doesn’t get the chance to analyze it for long, because the fox _yōkai_ himself walks into the room, carrying a bucket.

“Kou-chan, Tobio wants to know if you like me,” Daichi says unexpectedly, meeting his familiar’s questioning gaze, and this time Kageyama thinks he can pick up some mild entertainment in his tone.

The silver fox smiles too, reaching to pat the younger hunter’s shoulder briefly. “It’s going to be alright, you’ll see. For starters though, I suggest you make him an offering.”

Kageyama has a mind to openly point out that his question has been dodged, but is distracted when he notices the contents of the bucket – a pig head resting on a thick layer of ice cubes. Wonderful.

“Wow… this looks really gross, you know? Like some shit horror movie prop? He probably hates me already, if I-”

“Oh, no, no, not all this! I do realize it’s unsightly,” Koushi points with a quick headshake. “Just the eyeballs. Crows enjoy eyeballs.” His mouth twitches almost inconspicuously upon noticing the disgust creeping on the other’s face. “Oh, and you’ll spoil them with a knife, you should only use your fingers and carefully.” 

This is the worst thing ever. Tobio stares at the bucket and feels his soul withering.

“…why are you doing this to me? Do you think this is funny?” he asks quietly, then louder. “This thing is dead and gross and it’s- it’s even looking up at me, for fuck’s sake!”

The _yōkai’s_ face betrays nothing of his amusement, instead offering a demurely expectant look, and behind him Daichi is also silent, refusing to spoil his familiar’s fun. Lips pressed and brow creased in a deep scowl, Kageyama grabs the bucket and stomps out of the room, towards the interior garden.

* * *

Still, this shit probably makes sense, crows liking eyeballs. And he’s done worse than plucking out some dead animal’s eyes, hasn’t he?

_Actually, no, I haven’t. Fuck my life_.

If anything, Hinata should be happy with his new shrine, the hunter ponders, eyeing the heavily ornamented shrine with stone outer walls and columns, carved wooden roof and painted _shoji_ doors. He stares at it, unsure what to do. It’s well past midnight, but the petite _yōkai_ must be still resting. Should he say something? _Fuck. No, something other than ‘fuck’ preferably._

“Uh… Hinata, I brought you something to eat,” the brunet mutters eventually, poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue and eyeing the silver tray placed at the foot of the doors. Maybe he should just leave the eyeballs there (like it’s not the worst thing ever)?

There’s no answer and he can’t pick up any sounds from the inside of the shrine. Okay… Okay, he’ll just do it. With a deep sigh, Tobio turns away and takes a few steps before lowering the bucket down in the neatly-trimmed grass and squatting in front of it. He scowls some more, meeting the pig’s dead stare as he reaches in, instantly having to fight off the impulse to withdraw his hand at the feel of the icy-cold, damp skin. He has no choice but to dip his fingers into the edge of one eye socket, breaking the resistance of dead flesh and his own whimper of disgust almost drowns out the sound of a sliding pane behind him.

The hunter turns his head to see Shoyou standing there, watching him with an unreadable expression. He’s been given clean clothes and the black yukata makes his body look even smaller and thinner, bringing out the pallor of his face and limbs. He looks vulnerable and pitiful.

“What are you doing there, _ō-sama?_”

“Ah, um… I’m just-… I brought you something to eat, I thought you might be hungry.”

“You were making some weird sounds,” the ginger observes, blinking owlishly and making no move to get closer.

“Come here, Shoyou,” Kageyama prompts, as softly as he can. “Come on, I’m not got to do anything to you.”

Hinata doesn’t move so the brunet turns back to his task, after some effort and nausea rising up his throat eventually managing to pluck one of the eyeballs out. He holds it up with a morbid sort of fascination, reddish juice running down his cold-number fingers, before a smaller hand thankfully snatches it away.

“Thank you, _ō-sama,_” the petite yōkai whispers, taking a bite.

“Stop calling me that. My name is Tobio. Kageyama Tobio,” the hunter grumbles. “Do you… like that?”

The shadow of a smile tugs at the corners of Shoyou’s pale lips as he observes Tobio with his large caramel eyes, as if the hunter was endlessly intriguing. Like this, he’s childish and endearing in a way not even his acquired demonic nature can alter and Kageyama feels his chest tighten as his new familiar hums appreciatively, nodding and licking his lips as he reaches and plucks out the other eyeball with a swift move, stuffing it in.

“Soft, but cold and a little chewy,” Hinata says with his mouth full. “Can I climb on your back?” He stops eating and licks his lips, expectant. “You know, since I can’t perch on your shoulder…”

Kageyama bites his lip, staring determinedly down at the eyeless pig and trying to shake off the thought of the petite _yōkai’s_ body pressed against his. It’s not a bad thought though, awkward but not bad.

“No, you can’t. Your hands are dirty. For fuck’s sake!”

**THE END.**


End file.
